The Difference Between Succeeding In Your Massage Business and Giving It Away
Amy Roberts is a Massage Therapist and a Massage Business Coach.
She’s coached hundreds of massage therapists via eBooks, live conferences and audio broadcasts in several different countries.
If you want to get more clients and keep them coming back in your massage business then you might want to check out what Amy has to offer. The following article provides some tips on giving away your services.
I Have My Massage License, What Now?
When the excitement of graduation from your massage course has diminished and real life sets in, you can find yourself a little lost.
Questions can plague many massage therapists minds such as :
- “What now?”
- “How do I get clients to my massage therapy business”
- “Shall I start with massage business cards first? Surely they’d attract clients….”
And the one that costs us more in time and disappointment than anything
“Perhaps if I give away my massage for free, it will impress people enough that they come back and become regular clients…”
The Cost of Giving Free Massage Sessions
If you have acted on this idea of offering free massage and added up the hours over the past year or so that you’ve actually spent giving free sessions, you’ll find that it probably isn’t worth it.
If you really stop and think how much time you’ve given as opposed to what you have received, you’ll most likely find a surprising result.
Many massage therapists I’ve coached have come to me disappointed to find that giving away time for free doesn’t necessarily attract more clients. I did it myself when I was first new to the industry and found it was a waste of time. This doesn’t work for a few important reasons.
In a nutshell, how much you charge for your time represents the value you place on your service. And secondly, are the clients coming to you because you’re offering time for free, or they are coming because of the results they get from your massage treatment? More about this in a moment.
More Effective Marketing
However, don’t get the idea that I am not coaching you to spend time working ON your business to gain clients.
A better idea is to spend this time on marketing by visiting professionals in your area. Begin by talking to chiropractors, dentists, doctors, dance studios, sporting clubs etc.
You may need to talk to these professionals and get to know each other. Begin to build relationships with other professionals in your area. This interaction you obviously wouldn’t charge for because it’s a part of your marketing.
Can you see the difference between connecting with people and giving your time away for free?
When you are talking to a GP about how you can help their patients is quite a bit different than setting up a booth at a health fair giving away actual treatments in the hope that people will come to you and become clients.
In a meeting with a health professional, the idea is to determine if you would work to form an alliance of beneficial support, not to give your treatment for free.
In giving away free massage treatments you will attract not only people who might or might not want massage, but more to your disappointment, you’ll get “freebie” people to your massage business. These people only want your service because it is free, not because they are genuinely interested in forming a long-term practitioner-client relationship with you.
The bottom line, most of the time free clients are not interested in the massage therapy as a therapeutic treatment. This can eat away at your confidence and as a result have a negative impact on building your massage practice.
Building Your Client Base
An important fact is to stop giving away your massage treatments for free.
Start charging for your massage services and watch what happens! You’ll actually get more clients by valuing your work.
You will also filter out the people seeking freebies and your confidence will build as you attract serious people wanting help to eliminate their concerns. Your appointment book will begin to fill and referrals will soon follow.
Learn more about Amy’s massage business coaching and eBooks, visit > Ignite Your Massage Therapy Practice
You can also > Read an interview with Amy Roberts
Important points Amy and well put. Massage Therapists really need to value themselves in order to create a valuable business.
I disagree. I had a hard time starting out, and the only way I was able to get word of mouth was by giving free massages at the beginning. I didn’t just hand them over to anyone though. I gave them to doctors and chiropractors. I looked for places where medical professionals were likely to run into people with pain who would need my service. I think that free can be very good for a new business if it’s done right. It’s all about how you do it.